


please don't be in love with someone else

by fineh



Series: sincerity is scary [1]
Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Pining, yeah...this isn't a happy one folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23370667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineh/pseuds/fineh
Summary: That’s the problem, the crux of the situation, the cherry on the lavish sundae of it all.She’s in love with her best friend.
Relationships: Penelope Alvarez/Schneider
Series: sincerity is scary [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703497
Comments: 18
Kudos: 53





	please don't be in love with someone else

**Author's Note:**

> So...probably shouldn't be posting something so gloomy, especially not right now but I've been going through my drafts and found this so we're just gonna have to angst it out.
> 
> This is from 2018, pre-S3 so Avery was not a thing and I didn't feel like consulting the timeline to make this fit S3 canon so pretend Avery doesn't exist the same way I do on a daily basis :)

“Hello, Penelope. It’s me, Penelope.” The numbers flash by on her phone, time ticking away in front of her as she struggles to get her thoughts together. “It’s different terms at least, not better, but different. Maybe better and different. I don’t know.” Penelope laughs roughly, “I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

She does know, voicing her thoughts for an audience of one has turned out to be more therapeutic than she thought it would be. 

“I feel silly. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this, recording myself. I talk to myself all the time, mami thinks I’m crazy but this is different, heavier like I’ve exhausted all my options. And I guess I have. Normally I’d talk to Jill, Ramona, my mom, or go upstairs. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? I can’t go upstairs.” She stares up at the ceiling, “I can’t go talk to Schneider because this is about him.”

Somewhere along the craziness of the past two years, he’s become her best friend. 

“He’s my best friend.” She says it into her room, the one with a locked door even though she has the entire apartment to herself and the door is bolted shut. “He’d love this. Wouldn’t you, Schneider? Me, Penelope Alvarez admitting on tape that you’re my best friend.” It’s something she wouldn’t have admitted to before, but with each joking denial, she’d seen him withdraw further within himself and she’d hated watching it. She’d hated that she was the one doing it to him. “You’re my best friend, you really are. You’re the person I can count on for anything. Literally anything and I don’t know what do do with that but I love it. I love it, and I love you.”

That’s the problem, the crux of the situation, the cherry on the lavish sundae of it all.

She’s in love with her best friend. 

“I’m in love with you and I don’t know what to do. Surprise!” Penelope jokes weakly, “bet you didn’t see that coming. The only thing you ever saw was a door in your face and that doesn’t exactly equal love. I don’t know how many times I slammed the door in your face for no reason other than I could. And you let me.” Schneider let her because no matter how much he was suffering, no matter how much he might have needed Penelope or Lydia, he always put them first. Penelope hadn’t meant to overhear his speech to her mom, she’d only gone to prod him along because the Father was in a rush. So she’d heard the end of his speech and it’d broken her heart. “You let me turn you away. You let me because you knew I needed to be in control of something, even if it was you. That’s why I love you. You understand me better than I understand myself.”

“I didn’t see it coming any more than you did.” She never thought their late nights, quick morning chats, random shenanigans, and sometimes deep conversations would lead her to this. “But maybe I should have.” 

“I don’t deserve you.” It’s a hard truth Penelope has come to terms with. “You would disagree, I know you would.” He would put his hands on her shoulders, gently push her to sit down, maybe get her tea and proceed to outline all the reasons she was wrong. Pushing his glasses up his nose he would throw in a couple of jokes along with a heartbreaking one-liner that has a truth he’d never fully let her uncover. “But what have I ever done for you? I can’t even begin to list everything you’ve done for me, for my mom, for my kids.” Schneider didn’t just take care of her, he took care of all of them, Victor included.

“I remember the kids used to always come back from visiting mami and papi in the apartment after we left. Every single time.” It was the most infuriating thing. They’d come back bouncing off the walls, Elena especially. “I could never figure out where it came from. It wasn’t the hard strawberry candies my parents always had. No, it was full-size candy bars. They would come home with chocolate bars that were almost bigger than their faces, looking so happy I couldn’t take it away from them. They wouldn’t snitch either, saying I would just yell at the nice man. It was you.” Only Schneider, a man claiming to be only a temporary landlord would go as far as having treats for the kids of the building. Only Schneider would try to make the building more than just a building. Only Schneider would successfully create a community even while he was falling apart himself. “I figured it out after we moved in and saw the drawer you have in your office downstairs. Sidenote, it needs more Twix, I got a bad grade, don’t ask.” 

“Look at me, I’m saying this like you’re actually going to hear this. Like I’m going to march up to your apartment, sit you down and play it for you.” Penelope scoffs, “Yeah, right. Maybe a year ago I would have.” A year ago everything had been different. It was them hanging out. Not the hanging out they’d done after she’d broken up with Max. No, it was genuine movie nights, playing dominoes, or going to try whatever restaurant Schneider had read up on that week. Sometimes Lupe would teach him how to cook real food, not the gringo cardboard cedar plank stuff he liked eating. “But I can’t.”

“I can’t do that to you because you’re not single, you’re dating.” The words hurt to say out loud, “Schneider, dating, who would have thought? I always thought you would be single forever, swiping right and enjoying it. You being single is one of those things. The sky is blue, the grass is green, Schneider is single.”

“Except you’re not and I’m happy for you.” She is, the tear rolling down her face has nothing to do with the words she just spoke. “It’s not your fault I chose the most inconvenient time to realize this.” It only took a tense dinner party and an inexplicable feeling in her chest for her to admit exactly what that feeling was. “Jessica is great, a really nice person. My mom likes her which is a huge compliment since she always has something to say about everything.” Her mom hadn’t said anything after the dinner, she’d looked disappointed, staring at the door where a confused, sad Schneider had walked out. She’d drawn the curtain, the frown on her face telling Penelope to fix it or else.

“I’m such a burden and a bitch. You come here and eat my food and I go upstairs and suck out your soul.” It wasn’t a fair trade. “I don’t even know what I would do if you were single. Maybe it’d hurt less knowing you’re single and that’s so unfair.” 

This pain will go away, she knows it will, she’s been through this before. She’s going to ignore this feeling in her chest and the fact that it feels like everything she ever felt for Victor and Max but amplified. She’ll get over this, she has to.

“I’m going to be one more person on the list of other people that have walked away from you but here’s the difference Schnieder, I’m doing it because it’s what best for you, for us. For your sake, for our sake, I’m walking away.

“Goodbye, Schneider.” 

**Author's Note:**

> stay safe, stay home (if possible), and shout at me on [tumblr](http://finehs.tumblr.com)


End file.
